If you throw enough pots, you'll be a master potter

If you throw enough pots, you’ll be a master potter

Posted on October 27th, 2005 by Sacha Chua

If you throw enough pots, you’ll be a master potter.

I got up this morning at 6:30 to write. The idea had been bubbling in
my brain all night and I simply had to sit down and get it out of my
head. If I write enough articles, if I give enough speeches, if I keep
pushing myself to do better, then I’ll be a master—maybe not now, but
I can wait ten years.

Ten years and 10,000 hours of work. That’s all that separates us from
the masters. Chess champions, ballet dancers—it’s all about practice.
Only passion can really push you to go that extra mile.

10,000 hours of work is just three hours a day. I can do three hours a
day. I can spend three hours a day learning how to research, how to
write, how to speak. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing for school,
anyway. I can do more than three hours a day.

People ask me if success is a matter of talent.
Talent isn’t something you’re born with.
It’s something you pay for with practice.
All you can start out with is passion. And when you pursue your passion, you’ll find that the universe matches your effort.

So I’m going to throw a lot of pots. I’m going to write a lot of
articles and give a lot of speeches. I want your feedback,
encouragement, insights and advice. Help me make things happen.

More posts about: Uncategorized // 1 Comment »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/3107

Pingback: If you throw enough pots | sacha chua :: blog

On This Day...

2012: Weekly review: Week ending October 26, 2012 — Conference crunch! I’ve been sketchnoting so much, and people really like what I share. Onward and upward! I’ve been [...]
2011: Transcript: Blogging (Part 9): Learning from others — Hat-tip to Holly Tse for organizing this interview! At the end of the blog series, I’ll put them all together [...]
2010: "But what can I talk about?" Toastmaster tactics for tackling topics — This is a talk I’m giving to the IBM Toronto Lab Toastmasters today. I should trim a few hundred words [...]
2007: Choosing a daily schedule in Emacs — There’s more than one way to plan your day in Emacs, just like there’s more than one way to do everything [...]
2007: Tweaking day-specific planner pages — If you set planner-day-page-template to a function. Planner invokes the function when creating a new day page. This means that you [...]
2007: Emacs: managing schedule — If you spend a lot of time in Emacs—writing code, reading mail, saving the world—then it makes sense to manage your [...]
2006: Don’t sell; help people buy — A book I’m reading right now (151 Quick Ideas to Get New Customers, by Jerry R. Wilson) notes that people hate [...]
2006: Heavy stuff nearer floor = good — I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this earlier. The perfect place for my heavy suitcases is, of course, *on the [...]
2006: Keeping track of the age of messages — I can get pretty bad at responding to e-mail. This is an experiment to see whether the negative reinforcement of seeing [...]
2006: Planet Emacsen — http://planet.emacsen.org/ by Edward O’Connor. ‘Nuff said! =D On Technorati: emacs, pimpmyemacs Random Emacs symbol: ido-subdir – Face: *Font used by ido for [...]
2006: Livin’ la Vida Emacs — Squee! <bounce, bounce, bounce> Democamp10: Back at Mars Last, and certainly not least was Sacha Chua. If we could harness it I’m [...]
2006: Looking for a personal board of advisors — I won’t be going to the Free Software and Open Source Symposium tomorrow because I’m meeting Stephen Perelgut and a possible [...]
2005: Argh. Blog comment spam. — I remember why I put off having online blog comments for the longest time. It’s just a lot of work filtering [...]
2005: Reading bursts — Now that I’ve given myself permission to buy books I like, my bookshelf is slowly but steadily growing. Here’s a [...]
2005: Free Penguin — Free penguin sewing instructions! Oooh, cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!
2005: Planner tip #1: Overcome inbox insanity the Planner way — (641 words) Overloaded with e-mail? Overcome inbox insanity by using Planner to keep track of what you need to do. If you [...]
2004: More realizations — I’m finding it hard to concentrate on my project. I need users. I need to know that what I am doing [...]
2004: Met Tomoko and her friend — I had a hard time finding Tomoko at the Shinjuku station because there were so many people. Even with cellphones, it [...]
2004: Kitted out — Went out in coat, gloves, scarf, and bonnet. Still felt cold, but didn’t shiver as much. And this is just autumn! [...]
2004: Translators EB — Date Saturday, Oct. 30 Time 6:00pm (til about 9, 9:30) Place Oiwake (Taito-ku Nishiasakusa 3-28-11) http://www.oiwake.info/ 3844-6283 Access Iriya on the Hibiya sen or Tawaramachi on the [...]

sacha chua living an awesome life